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Development of well-designed bifunctional electrocatalysts with high activity for OER (oxygen evolution reaction) and ORR (oxygen reduction reaction) are a crucial topic owing to their promising applications in rechargeable Zinc (Zn)-air battery. Herein, a facile adsorption-pyrolyzation strategy is proposed for preparing ultrafine Ni nanoparticles anchored on carbon nanofiber (Ni/CNF), which derives from pyrolyzation of bacterial cellulose (BC) (with pre-adsorbed of Ni 2+ ) via a two-step heat-treatment procedure (firstly 360 ℃, and then 750 ℃) (Ni/CNF-750) and used as an excellent oxygen electrocatalyst for flexible all solid-state Zn-air cell. The resultant ultrafine Ni/CNF-750 with plentiful pore structure and relatively high specific surface area of 449.0 m 2 g -1 , delivering overpotential of 293 mV at current density of 10 mA cm -2 for OER, obtaining an onset potential of 0.93 V vs. RHE and half-wave potential of 0.76 V vs. RHE for ORR. Moreover, a home-made flexible all solid-state battery is constructed by using Ni/CNF-750 as air electrodes, which provides a power density of 56.8 mW cm -2 and wonderful cycling durability with maintaining 50 cycles, and can drive a light-emitting-diode (LED) device. Our work may provides a reliable approach for fabricating ultrafine metal nanoparticles anchored on carbon based substrate with high activity for next-generation energy conversion and storage devices., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

We investigate the possibility of utilizing benzyl alcohol oxidation reaction to replace sluggish oxygen evolution reaction (OER) for the charging process in a rechargeable zinc-air battery, catalyzed by NiCo alloy nanoparticles supported on activated carbon (NiCo/AC) with the multifunctional electrocatalytic activities of the oxygen reduction, oxygen evolution and benzyl alcohol oxidation reactions. As an electrocatalyst for the oxygen reduction reaction (OER), NiCo/AC exhibits superior catalytic activity with an onset potential of 0.85 V (vs. RHE), a half-wave potential of 0.74 V (vs. RHE) and a large limiting current density of 4.65 mA cm -2 at 0.2 V (vs. RHE). Moreover, NiCo/AC also demonstrates the electrocatalytic oxidation activities toward water and benzyl alcohol, moreover, the benzyl alcohol oxidation reaction is more thermodynamically and kinetically favourable with 254 mV smaller overpotential than water oxidation at 10 mA cm -2 . Owing to these advantages, NiCo/AC as air cathode material is assembled into a home-made rechargeable zinc-air battery, resulting an almost 200 mV lower charging voltage at the current density of 50 mA cm -2 in the presence of 0.1 M benzyl alcohol compared to the battery without benzyl alcohol, consequently obtaining 10.5% energy saving at the charging current density of 50 mA cm -2 with high durability., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)